Are Some Medicines Too Cheap?

That’s a question few of us ever expected to be taken seriously. Just the opposite is the norm. But there is a developing problem about low-priced medications – they are becoming in short supply.

This is certainly a problem in the U.K., where access to a basic AIDS drug has been difficult. But shortages of essential drugs – mostly generic medicines whose patents have long expired – are becoming increasingly frequent globally. In fact, the World Health Organization (WHO) has gone as far as to suggest minimum prices may be needed to keep some products on the market.

These drug shortages are due to several factors, from manufacturing, quality and raw material problems to unexpected spikes in demand – all of which are exacerbated by the fact that there are fewer and fewer suppliers.

This notion of minimum prices for certain essential medicines contrasts sharply to traditional pricing debates about how to reduce the extremely high cost of new patented drugs for diseases such as cancer and hepatitis C.

Of major concern is that shortages in developing countries may go unreported for months or even years, which increases the risk of counterfeits entering the supply chain.

As in most businesses, the bottom line is the bottom line: If prices become too low, manufacturers of essential drugs are driven out of the market by their economic responsibilities.

The Science of Hunger

It would make sense that if we only ate when we were actually hungry we’d be living in our natural rhythms and thus be healthier and fitter.

But nature doesn’t always make sense. In this case the problem is that our hunger is very often out to deceive us. Hunger is a complex conglomeration of signals throughout the brain and body. The drive to eat comes not only from our need to fuel our bodies, but also a variety of cues in our environment – not the least of which is pursuit of pleasure.

There are basically two types of hunger. One is when you haven’t eaten for a while. That’s easy to understand. But a second kind is called “hedonistic hunger,” and it is exactly what the name implies – wanting food, dwelling on food, craving food – simply for the pleasure of eating it. And that is less understood.

One theory about hedonic hunger is that predisposition to tasty foods, which humans developed long ago, has run amok in the modern environment, with the wide availability of delicious foods available almost all the time.

Apparently our self-control has not evolved as quickly as humanity’s culinary skills have.

Of course we can’t just blame hunger (or its cousin “appetite”) for our weight problems. Sometimes we turn the tables and deceive our hunger – for instance, using zero-calorie sweeteners may confuse fullness signals and trick our brain into thinking we haven’t eaten much when we have actually eaten too much. Often far too much.

So the next time you think you’re hungry, before hitting the fridge try to decide if you might just be feeling a little hedonistic instead.

LSD, Time Perception, and Depression

For decades the effects of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) on the human brain have fascinated a wide range of “researchers” from actual scientists to movie stars like Cary Grant to the far-out hippies of the 60s.

And that fascination is not about to stop now.

A new brain scan study suggests that LSD causes decreased activity in the brain’s default mode network, which is active when people daydream or think about their past. As a result, study participants “tripping on acid” (as the vernacular goes) spent almost all of their altered state thinking about the present and future.

Each of 20 participants was given a dose of LSD in one session and a placebo dose in the other. Two hours after receiving their dose, researchers monitored participants’ brain activity using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Afterwards, participants answered questions about what they had been thinking during the fMRI.

Participants thought dramatically less about the past when using LSD as compared to a placebo. At the same time, fMRI scans indicate significantly lower default mode network activity following LSD. Researchers believe these results support the view that at least some of the time perception effects are caused by the action of LSD on that particular brain network.

The hallucinogenic drug’s positive time perception effects may someday prove useful to the development of therapies for people suffering from depression, one symptom of which is excessive preoccupation with the past.